The enemy had no intention of escaping.
That was never their primary objective.
First Khai and then Naero flashed in within a matter of several minutes to help repulse the main attack and destroy most of the enemy vessels before they could reach the hospital ship. Very few of the attackers escaped.
But by then the worst damage had already been done at the very outset.
The Great Adversary finally got lucky and achieved one of their long term goals.
Naero and Khai were finally too late to change the bitter outcome they had feared for so long.
The shuttle that their family had been on was completely destroyed by intense main battery fire concentrated on it from over a dozen enemy heavies, Ultrium battleship dreadnaughts that sacrificed themselves to get in close and vaporize that one key shuttle.
From the small amount of debris and wreckage left behind, both parents knew that the end for everyone on board that doomed shuttle had been quick.
Klyne cut through the naval channels and ordered all GSA Champion forces to stand down and await further word of the recovery efforts onboard Naero’s flagship.
That included Khai and Naero.
As parents, they descended into a dark pit of loss and desolation from which there was no ready escape.
Hours later, the recovery teams confirmed what had been expected all along. There had been a total loss of life on board the destroyed shuttle. The full volume of enemy direct fire at close range had been completely devastating and un-survivable.
There were not many remains, but enough to verify death by genetics, biomancy, and some partial dental records of the many souls on board.
Everything that could be sifted through and studied was gone over for the most minute findings.
Naero and Khai understandably drifted on in further shock, and thereafter remained in private seclusion.
In the end they both requested for Zhen to sedate them, which was a tall order in itself.
Many of their friends and family wished that they could black out what had happened as well.
All of them and the Alliance mourned quietly for days, refusing to speak with anyone publicly or privately.
Even when conscious, Naero and Khai could not be consoled, and demanded to be left alone with their private agony.
At that same time, the Dark Emperor and his forces in the Gamma Quadrant openly celebrated and rejoiced at their triumph–at murdering the children of their impudent foes, foolish enough to oppose them.
They flooded all available com channels with their gloating delight.
Nahaxrathrax even sent a tight beam communique directly to Naero and Khai personally, promising to send them to join their feeble spawn in death as quickly as possible.
Naero came out of mourning long enough to play that cruel message publicly for all of the Alliance sentients and their children to hear. This was just what the enemy was.
This was what they did.
Everyone in the great fight needed to remember that fact, and that included the lander worlds, and all sentient worlds in the galaxy.
“No one is safe anywhere,” she said. “If they can get at me and my family, they can attack yours–any time that they want, and they are planning just that.”
Naero refused to address her private life in public any further. She did, however, go on for a long while, very eloquently, about the very real threats they all faced.
She also announced that she and Khai would not have any more children until the war was concluded. They could not risk losing any more.
She swore that justice for her lost babes, and her family and friends would be meted out against Nahaxrathrax and his ilk. Day would come, and she and Khai would have their vengeance. Both of them would re-dedicate themselves to the prosecution of the Great War, and see it through to its end. The G’lothc and all of their putrid slaves would pay a heavy price for the loss of yet another Alliance family.
Khai stood with her, and gave voice to much the same in spirit, struggling to contain his emotions. But he was not the orator that Naero was, and now, he was in many ways a broken man by all reports.
The wake and then the funerals for Shetharra, Daeyen, Kathron, Allantar, Selendil, and the unborn twins carried by Sharrah were held on the third day, along with many others from that ill-fated shuttle.
Adding to their shocking grief was the loss of Admiral Saemar, and her young son, Hikaru. That was even more bitterness heaped on top of bitterness.
Naero and Khai often broke down and wept, clinging to each other for support, while numerous golden casket pods were fired into the nearest sun in a very private ceremony.
The surviving parents were not seen in public or on duty thereafter for a standard week.
After that time, as both of them had promised, Naero and Khai went back to duty with the Alliance forces and re-dedicated themselves to defeating the great foe.
In that long term fight, they would always be in high demand.
They struggled to keep busy amid their deep grief. They clearly needed something to do that would take their minds off of their shock and depression. For themselves and many others, they needed to maintain a brave front.
For the GSA, there was no end of important objective; in that regard, something always came up.
17
It took longer than Naero and Khai thought for the Human Future Movement to get itself into serious trouble in the Delta Quadrant.
Yet that was bound to happen with the determined lunacy quotient inherent within the HFM. And when that trouble erupted, it came all at once.
Naero and Khai raced back with a large task force to assess the ongoing situation near the Delta Quadrant border as numerous matters continued to unfold.
They found the multiple situations confusing and challenging to say the least.
On one hand the Alliance had urgent requests from HFM fleets to leap into the Unknown Regions, race to their aid, and help rescue them against heavy attacks by various new alien factions and races that they had blundered into.
Other conflicting communications from Prime Leader Shaul and Admiral Elkins warned off the Alliance, and even threatened them with hostility if they interfered with HFM military affairs.
Naero and Khai dismissed the latter out of hand.
With their ignorant bravado, the exploration fleets of the HFM being monitored by Alliance Intel spyfixers were quickly reported by their own navy to be in deep crap. In fact, they were simultaneously embroiled in several major hot zones where conflicts with the existing sentients in those parts naturally developed.
Naero’s delegation had tried to warn them that their ridiculous claim to dominion of the entire Delta Quadrant would not be received well at all by the interstellar sentients who already existed there.
The HFM had succeeded in spectacularly pissing off and making instant enemies of just about every new race or group of sentients that they had encountered.
Khai tried to tabulate and report what was currently known about every major hot spot.
Clearly there was going to be a great deal of damage control, heated negotiation, and fence mending among these new sentients.
In one region, the HFM squabbled and traded probing attacks with a large organization of humanoid and other alien systems calling itself the ITO. This acronym apparently stood for the “Interstellar Trade Organization.” They were a confederation of wealthy merchant worlds with their own substantial naval fleets, and a protectorate of a few hundred member worlds and aligned systems by treaty. They protected their regions and their profits fanatically, and were not a group to be bullied or trifled with.
The ITO did not take kindly to the HFM informing them how Humans now owned not only them, but all of the Delta Quadrant.
Why would anyone assume that such a brazen proclamation would go over well anywhere?
At the same time the HFM morons also came up against another Interstellar race of near humans controlling an empire of over a thous
and systems. The Astalarian Imperial Navy had the HFM forward elements in one region on the run, in full retreat, if not a rout.
In still several other places further into the black, the HFM exploration fleets fell victim to raids from a fearful host of space pirates and slavers who preyed upon anyone they could overcome. These feared brigands were widely known in some parts as the Voga Raiders, who battled all comers under the various banners of the flaming skull.
Yet another direction of their intended conquest brought the HFM up against a reptilian species of alien terraformers operating on a vast scale. The dinosaur-like Kuldek sentients controlled the Kuldek Conglomerate, and jealously defended every world that they either claimed, or cooked, as they said. They were not picky about cooking backwater worlds or worlds with low-tek cultures of primitive native sentients.
That would have to stop.
When the HFM declared themselves to be the owners of the Delta Quadrant, the Conglomerate openly laughed, and protested such claims vehemently by opening fire on all HFM vessels.
Worst of all, at their deepest penetration of the Delta Quadrant’s Unknown Regions, the HFM blundered into a hyper aggressive species of three-meter-long battle beetles called the Gixx. It was not known how many worlds or systems the rapacious, hi-tek Gixx invaders had taken over by swarm and force, but that number appeared to be many.
The Gixx did not take slaves or prisoners in battle or conquest.
They ate their defeated foes, if they were edible, and kept a small breeding stock of them as cattle thereafter, if they were considered tasty.
Unfortunately, the Gixx found all humans mouthwateringly delicious.
The violent Gixx did not negotiate or answer to anyone.
They did not seem to fear anything, at first.
Then the Alliance spyfixers learned from secret Gixx communications and data records that even the Gixx spoke of a terrible enemy from their past, that they had encountered and fled from long ago.
This threat still existed deeper within the far off depths of the Delta Quadrant. This horrific power had nearly vanquished and destroyed the fierce Gixx less than a century before. Having met their match at last, the Gixx simply fled far away from this awful threat, and expanded into other softer areas in order to survive.
Both Naero and Khai worried that any foe that could instill such fear into the avaricious Gixx might turn out to be elements of the Great Adversary.
Who else could it be?
Under the circumstances in their galaxy, that was most likely a fair assumption. But until they encountered this powerful threat first hand, the Alliance could not be entirely certain.
That was yet another part of the inherent difficulty and complexity of the current situations.
The GSA did not own the Alpha and Gamma Quadrants, but it was heavily invested in and totally committed to defending them against the constant threat and aggression from the Great Adversary.
The Alliance forces were already heavily involved in two quadrants, and that was a huge commitment in itself.
They were spread too thin as it was, even if no one wished to admit that openly.
Currently, they did not have the ships nor the troops to take on every threat in the entire Galaxy.
“Haisha, Om, this is not exactly a great time for the clowns of the HFM to stir up not one, but several hornet’s nests of conflict and trouble in a mostly unexplored quadrant.”
As many expected, the HFM started these fires, and now the Alliance is being forced to rush about and attempt to put them out.
To assist the GSA in these efforts, the Alliance turned once again to their old friends for help. They had no choice.
Baeven and his people opened a series of wyrmholes and brought in many support forces from the Wellington Irregulars along with them. At least this time, they would be in full force.
They came together and coordinated their strategies at the last instant.
First they would combine their many elements in haste.
Then they would first confront the forces of the ITO already converging upon their formations in real time.
“Glad to have you all with us again,” Naero told them. “Greetings Uncle, Jia. Welcome Jaer, Bodii. You too, Al–and all of the other performers in your three ring circus.”
Laughter rushed back at Naero. Then something disrupted their coms at that exact moment.
“We are now experiencing considerable enemy jamming waves. Normal links may be spotty for a time,” S’krin announced.
“They can’t block our psyonics,” Naero said flatly. “But I’m not connected with everyone just yet.
“That doesn’t matter. All of us know each other,” Baeven shouted psyonically. “The enemy is almost upon us. Prepare for battle! We don’t have time, Naero. You and your reps take over the combined fleets we have on hand under your direct command.”
Their coms crackled back up for a while.
“At your pleasure, Admiral Naero,” Alphonse cut back in. “No one can direct strategic and tactical naval ops like you and your teams, N. No one. I have seen it with my own eyes.”
“Done,” Naero said. “Someone get me Jaer; I don’t have a rep with him yet, and I want to remedy that. I am already in direct mindlink with fleet reps Nesheel with the 21st, Alith with the 67th, and Jevine with the 88th. Al, I just flashed over my rep Yadira to keep you linked with all of us and to help direct your people. She can pop in more reps among your fleets as needed.
S’krin patched in a new secure link directly with Jaer. “I just got through the enemy jamming, Bae. Naero, here’s Jaer at last.”
“I’m reading you, N. Tell me what you need, over.”
“You and Al need to get those secret weapons of yours set up in these locations, just in case. I hope it won’t come to that, but if things do go bad with the ITO, we’ll need those big guns of yours. The other side outnumbers us all over four to one, and once again, we have no reserves to call upon.”
“Got it, N. Al and I are on it.”
“Jaer, I’m sending my rep Fasha over to keep us mindlinked. Speak to her as you would to me. Update me on your progress and notify me the instant those super guns are in position and available for support. But it is vital that no one open fire on the ITO, even if attacked. They see all of us as attacking invaders. We need to calm them down, get them to cease fire, and talk with us.”
“Got it. Over and out.”
As soon as the GSA entered the contested regions controlled by the ITO, Naero’s scouting force came under almost immediate attack by ITO forces.
With the breakdown in communications between the ITO and the HFM, she found the two sides on the brink of total war, if not already tipped over the edge.
The Traders naturally assumed that the GSA forces were merely more human reinforcements for the HFM.
She executed several defensive retreats in excellent order, all the while attempting to explain to the ITO that her forces were not part of the HFM.
“The GSA has only come to negotiate for the good of everyone involved.”
Initial damage to Naero’s forces remained minimal.
She held up responding in kind.
All the while, she allowed the damaged and engaged HFM forces to break off and retreat. Then she demanded that all the rest fade away and jump out.
If they refused to leave, Naero’s fleets would open fire on them. She made that abundantly clear.
The HFM decided to be somewhere else.
Next, with the two original combatants now separated, Naero continued all attempts to open a dialogue with the ITO, continually explaining that the GSA was decidedly not part of the HFM. They came to help restore order, trade, and profit-making.
“The GSA strongly wishes to negotiate lucrative treaties for both peace and substantial trade.”
After a few more feeble attacks, the ITO finally observed that many of its outdated weapons were having little effect on the advanced warships of these newcomers.
T
he ITO still had larger numbers of warships on their side, but they wisely pulled back and finally listened. They asked for particulars, especially concerning the mention of the magic words: lucrative trade and profit.
Nothing, however, went easily or according to plan.
Thinking that this was an opportune moment, the HFM morons unfortunately misread the situation yet again and tried to jump back in and attack, thinking to use the current negotiations to gain the upper hand.
To everyone’s surprise, Naero immediately interposed her fleets between both sides, and absorbed the HFM’s attacks, again, with little damage.
The HFM Navy wrongly assumed that the GSA forces would now back their aggression.
They were dead wrong.
“HFM forces, be advised. Cease all aggression and stand down. Void these skies immediately or be destroyed. Choose swiftly!”
Once more, the HFM gaggle of idiots wisely chose to turn tail and vanish, in protest, of course.
Haisha! What was wrong with these goofballs?
Naero made certain that the area was now secure.
ITO negotiators continued to work with Naero and her people after some more coaxing, while the GSA Navy remained poised, ready to do battle with either side in the conflict if necessary.
She had not come to fight.
Naero did everything in her power to stop and de-escalate the fight that had been going on.
The ITO people were traders and merchants mostly, just like they said. But they had also learned that the best defense was a strong offense.
One of their leaders casually asked Naero if there was anyone in the GSA willing to focus on matters of trade and profit, instead of interstellar conquest.
Naero burst out laughing. She then went on to explain that Spacer children learned to cut and pweak trade deals and barter soon after they could talk. If the ITO liked trading, the Spacer Merchant Clan Fleets would give them all that they could handle, and then some.
Once the ITO learned that a hungry lander expansion wave of colonization was also gearing up to blaze forth into the Delta Quadrant during the next year, they were hooked. Naero could almost see the cred signs lighting up before their eyes.
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